New Artist Stage Presence during Performances

It is obvious that new Artists are NOT doing their homework on this business before they decide to get on stage and MC. Let me tell you why that is a bad idea, Here's an example: Last thursday night i was at an open mic competition in Sunnyvale,CA checking out the new talent. EVERY single male rapper that came on was yelling over the vocals on their tracks...Do you guys not realize that we cant understand you dog? It sounds like a bunch of noise and to make it worse, they walk around on the stage like they are the SHIT!... that couldnt be further from the truth since you forgot to check your stupidity at the door. Now on the other hand, the female rappers and singer had all their shit together, stage show was poppin, live vocals that were understandable, crowd participation on point and showed that they practiced their routine and were serious about their Art. This is something that the millions of wanna be rappers need to come to grips with... This is a business and if you expect to be successful in it you have to invest yourself into your craft. Practice at home in front of the mirror; i know it sounds corny, but it will show you what the crowd sees and what they see is what counts. The moral of this short blog is to inform the new up and coming Artists of the importance of stage presence and crowd participation. Remember: Always do your vocals live, use hooks and adlibs only for performances, dont be a statue on stage, and have fun with it the crowd will join you if they see you believe in YOU. Until next time, practice... stage presence... crowd participation... those are your goals to have a memorable show. See you on stage!

Networking 101

New up and coming Artists need to learn to use social networking sites to meet people relevant to what they are trying to accomplish. Twitter has become a powerhouse networking tool. To effectively take advantage of the opportunities available on Twitter you should do people searches for "dj","promo","PR",Publicist" and check the profile of those that pop up including their external websites to see if they are 'talkers' or 'doers'. Dont follow useless people as you will only be wasting your time. Check their twitter feed,see what type of things they talk about and most of all who they are talking to. There is a bit of research involved if you want to maximize on the opportunities available through sites like this. In actuality, the research never stops because as your following grows and you follow more people you will check them out too, and so on and so forth. Once you have found some key people begin to reach out to them and DONT BEG FOR ANYTHING!!! Start small, follow their feed and make a SENSIBLE comment to one of their tweets and see if you get a response. If not dont worry try again later or another contact,there are many more out there. But if you do get a response Keep it cool, NEVER sound desperate. You build relationships with people based on who YOU are. You should always keep it real because lies get forgotten and you get branded or even blacklisted. Believe it or not this music industry is tightly knit in the sense that all the real movers network together in some form. Thats why you never say negative things about people online period. Once its posted, its in the world and you cant take that back. Remember, when you have built relationships with people you have to STAY IN CONTACT with them if you expect anyone to believe that you are serious about what you want to do. When you have set aside a budget and have goals that you want to achieve truly, remember this is a BUSINESS and dont expect anyone to do ANYTHING for you for free. Compensation isnt too much to ask for a service that you cannot perform alone is it? Of course not, so dont disrespect people that have worked hard to be in a position to help you by not offering to pay for services rendered. DJ's, Promoters, Publicists work hard to build the networks they use to distribute music, promote artists/shows and break records so respect their hustle and PAY THEM! You will be respected as a good business person for it. As your relationships grow, people will begin to endorse you since its obvious that you are serious about succeeding. As more people endorse you your following will grow. Remember when you get new followers to acknowledge the fact that they followed you with a thank you or some gesture, it makes people feel as if they got personal attention from you and also gains you respect. Check their posts, external websites and decide if its beneficial to follow their updates or not but still acknowledge them, they may promote you for free if they like your style...i.e. FANS. Vast amounts of knowledge of this business are found in random tweets,for no charge. That is why it is important to folllow the right people. To totally maximize your benefit, be savvy enough to google something you may have read that you dont understand instead of publicly asking them to explain(via twitter public timeline). Think before you type the same as you would think before you talk. Then you have the knowledge and no one publicly knows of your ignorance of the fact. Educate YOURSSELF!!! Elevate your thinking daily, keep grinding and you will undoubtedly keep growing.